After inserting a catheter into a patient, surgeons and other medical professionals often must make precise changes to the direction of the catheter. Catheters are often inserted into a patient through a catheter sheath, and therefore such changes in the catheter direction often require the surgeon to rotate the catheter relative to the catheter sheath in order to facilitate proper placement. However, the smooth and small exterior diameter of the catheter, and the unpredictable level of force required to rotate the catheter relative to the catheter sheath when inside the patient may impede precise catheter placement.
Historically, medical professionals have manually rotated the catheter relative to the catheter sheath by hand. Because of the level of precision needed in placing a catheter, and the unpredictable amount of force necessary to rotate the catheter relative to the catheter sheath, it may be difficult to precisely align the catheter in the appropriate location within the patient. A surgeon may be required to make several precise changes in catheter positioning by moving a catheter to or from a particular location, and therefore the surgeon may be required to make many minor changes to the catheter placement relative to the catheter sheath during an adjustment process. Once the catheter reaches its proper positioning within the patient, the surgeon may then be required to ensure the catheter maintains its position for a period of time while other external forces (e.g., blood flows around the catheter, tissue retraction, and/or the like) may work to move the catheter away from its precise location.
Manually maintaining precise positioning by holding the catheter may be physically exhausting for a surgeon over a period of time, and therefore maintaining a precisely determined catheter placement may be difficult. Therefore, devices and methods for facilitating improved precision in catheter placement are needed in order to facilitate catheter stability.